A Queens couple trying to conceive a child claims a doctor destroyed their prospects for a family by thawing and killing their embryos, and now they’re suing the Long Island hospital where they went for fertility treatments.
“It was very painful,” said Abida Mahmood, 37. “I feel like they killed my babies. I’ve been crying for months.”
She and her husband, Sajid, 50, of Astoria, told The Post they were unable to conceive and went last year to the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Center for Human Reproduction, at North Shore University Hospital, in Manhasset.
Their doctor, Matthew Cohen, began an in-vitro fertilization program in which eggs were extracted from Abida, fertilized outside the womb and implanted back into her, said the couple’s lawyer Stephanie Ovadia.
Cohen extracted 18 eggs last November, 16 of which were successfully fertilized and developed into embryos, the lawsuit says.
A month later, two of the embryos were implanted, but that failed to result in a pregnancy, Abida said. A second procedure in February used two more embryos but also did not lead to pregnancy.
In May, the couple decided to change physicians. They asked Cohen’s office to return their embryos and were told to pick them up.
After waiting an hour at North Shore, they said, they were told that the embryos had been thawed and destroyed.
“I asked them, ‘Why did you destroy my embryos without my permission?’ ” said Abida, an airport security officer.
North Shore University Hospital spokesman Brian Mulligan said the problem “was some kind of misunderstanding.”
The Mahmoods filed the malpractice suit in Nassau County Supreme Court.